The Decline of the American Middle Class

Unlike in Europe, the Middle Class in America was permitted to flourish as a dominant one in the 19th Century, but it lost its status in the 20th Century and was foredoomed to an early eclipse in the struggle between the powerful owners and the working class masses (8). But according to other rival social historians, these Middle Classes were emerging from the corporate industrial revolution now underway, transformed considerably, in relation to the economic structure but stronger and more certain of continued power in the days ahead. (9).

For the territorial expansion of the first quarter of the 19th Century, the farmer was responsible. But the townsmen, the independent entrepreneurs in trade, artisans and workers in manufacture, all had accounted for great gains in population and national income in the last half of the century.

Between 1800 and 11850, the population of the four largest cities, viz., New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore, had increased by 40%. also in the last decade of the above period, while the population of the U.S. had risen by 36%, those of the towns had grown by 90%. In the 20th Century, these centers had grown so fast over the rural area that by 1930, the urban areas contained more people than the rural area. (10) In the growth of the cities, the outward manifestation of industrialization was found, expanding itself, after Civil War (1861-65), through the development of the corporate form of organization, the use of machines resulting in technological advance, new forms of energy, especially the electricity and the mass production methods. Large scale manufacturing had replaced the handicraft production of independent enterprises. They had brought about a remarkable improvement in the status of a townsman worker. Small enterprises had to bow down before the hireman-managed corporate business organization, for these, better men had no interest at all. The town’s middle class had invaded the distributive field of retail merchandizing. This had slowly transformed itself into corporate business. Many of them, particularly artisans were absorbed as mechanics in the factory system. This had a deleterious effect on the worker-skill of the earlier day. Many more were converted into hired-laborers.

This was one proof of the decline of the middle class resulting in its disappearance. It finally identified itself as a working class force. The evil was tolerated for its consolidation; for its great lure of a real opportunity for work to get recognized, promoted and securely well-extended. This remotely resulted in the enhancement of the individual’s social prestige. There was also a great chance for an individual to fulfil his good in life easily. There was the open class system, in which very few people could transcend the class distinction through merit. The classlessness of the economy is the essential quality of American Society. In all probability, a man at the very bottom may reach the top level of society in a perfectly functioning democratic setup.

It had been the reigning ambition in the heart of every hero in Lewis' later novels to become a social climbing hero. Samuel Dodsworth, the Assistant Foreman of the Revelation Motor Company of Zenith had worked his way up to the ownership of the company. He was married to Francess Voelker, the daughter of a German brewer Mr. Voelker of Zenith. But then the merger of the Revelation Motor Company with the United Automotives Corporation of a captain of finance, Alec Kyanance, had taken place. The individual incentive being dead, the original Veblenian Engineer, Dodsworth had to quit. His pride was hurt to the quick. And he finally left. This was the tragedy of an individual entrepreneur.

It may really turn out on examination that there is no middle class in America. But truly in the works of Alfred M. Bingham, there is a “middle group of classes” in place of a mere middle class..

“We are what we think we are. And if the bulk of the people, in a modern capitalistic country like the United States, think of themselves as of middle class, having interests between those of "capital" and “labor” then there is such a middle class or middle group of classes.”

But then the equivalent word for Middle class, “Bourgeois”, was imported from France - with a historic connotation of a city-dwelling population composed of business and trade-proprietors, artisan-proprietors and the banking fraternity. Such a middle class had soon given way to the influence of the pioneer life in America. With a new division of labor, this Middle Class was considerably broadened, helped on by many professional and administrative personnel, to live at a plane of “Comfort” in society.

It was a convention with the middle class to own a production unit. But this was replaced by the factory system. The original owners were ultimately dispensed with. While the higher income clerical cadre of workers had a status in the middle class community, the former owners were thrust out of the charmed circle. The “White Collar” and “Business Suit” increasingly clothed the moderately circumstanced people in a wide variety of callings. The schooling differences between people had lessened. Mass production had yielded standardized culture. It had permitted a similar type of living to many people in the white collar ranks whose income-circumstances were quite dissimilar. The gross differences between such people had diminished, making the middle class increase its membership. This would imply that this stratum of people, lie between the limit of poverty and luxury. It would testify a belief that there existed an essential “Commonness” of circumstances, culture-attitudes, and aspirations. It could be pictured as an approximation of the normal curve into which so many measured traits of individuals and society seem to fall when investigated scientifically. It is a curve where only a few are found either below or above the vast majority. But such a conception would destroy the belief in a class-like, well-knit group. Nor would it stand up when differing incomes or scales were to be examined; for them it would imply that the curve disturbing the circumstances of the people, was decidedly skewed. A few at the top were enjoying great luxury and a great mass at the bottom, living miserably. A substantial body of citizens in the upper middle range lived decently.

(8) Lewis Corey: The crisis of Middle Class

(9) Bingham Alfred M.: “Insurgent America” Ch. X - Farar and New York, 1932

(10) Palen, Franklin, G.: “The Middle Class, then and now” - P.216, 217